Plants vs Zombies is a Refreshing Take on the “Defense” Genre [Game Review]

I’m sure many of you folks know just how good Plants vs Zombies is, especially if you were able to get it for free the day it launched courtesy of Amazon. I thought I was exhausted on the defense genre, but the folks at PopCap give a refreshing spin on it. Will it be worth your coinage and roughly 74 MB on your deice’s storage?

Premise

Plants vs Zombies combines two of my favorite things: zombies and the task of defending a homefront. (You didn’t think I was a huge fan of plants, did you?) You use various plants and tools to fight off hordes of hungry zombies and you defend your house and everyone in it. Yes, plants. I thought it was whacky when I first heard of it a long while ago, but I gave it a shot and, honestly, I might like plants more than I like guns. You use sunlight, not money, for weapons and ammunition. And you don’t even have to be outside fight the horde off. How awesome is that?

Gameplay

As I touched on before, you use sunlight to “buy” or “grow” plants. You’ll get a small amount of sunlight every now and then from the game, but you can also plant sunflowers (who could have guessed it?) to get more. Once the zombies come, you have to strategically plant your flora to successfully defend the house behind them. At the end of each level, you may receive a card that’ll unlock a new plant for you to buy.

Some plants sit there and shoot peas out of their mouths, some are used for defending other plants, and some are used for more awesome things like taking out a group of zombies with an explosion that any arsonist would be proud of. The best thing about Plants vs Zombies is that you don’t just go on for levels and levels doing the same thing with enemies getting more numerous and powerful each time.

PopCap switches things up with mini games throughout, such as a game where you go bowling to rid your lawn of the undead. They also add new dynamics to levels, presenting you with swimming zombies that you need to defend an entirely different way. And unlike other defense games, your enemies evolve just as much as your weapons do. As you go along, you’ll encounter smarter enemies like ones that can pole jump over any obstacle you set in front of it, making it necessary for you to change your gameplan up on a whim if a timed bomb or a shield you plant is on the same column as the jumper.

Things can get hectic as time goes on and will intimidate those who aren’t too good at these types of games. You’ll fail a lot as you get further, but patience is your last resort with a game like this. This doesn’t make the game bad, it’s just challenging (and, to be honest, we need more challenging games).

Replay Value

You get 50 levels, encountering mini games and numerous changes to your stable of weapons and the zombies trying to attack you along the way. Through the 50 levels, you’ll defend 5 different areas, including a rooftop, your front lawn, your back lawn with a swimming pool and more. Folks complain that 50 levels is too short, but if you’re a strategical noob like I am, it’ll take quite a while to get through all of them. Unfortunately PopCap has not committed to updates that add new levels, weapons or zombies.

Presentation

The game looks good. Graphics are 2D, but sprites and levels are high in quality and animation looks good. Despite the fact that the game is 2D, some devices may have trouble running it on higher levels with more plants and zombies. The listing on Amazon has the full list of devicies confirmed to not work well with the title. Sound is good, too, though I would have liked a bit more variation in the zombies’ groans and growls. Music is alright, but I did turn it off after a while.

Verdict

Plants vs Zombies for Android absolutely is a homerun from PopCap. It translates well from the consoles to the smaller screens and it’s a game that can be a quick pick-up-and-play experience or hours-long brain-craving fests. And for some folks, long sessions won’t be an option as it can quickly get addicting as you make your way from level to level.

As I said, you’ll love the unique curveballs this game throws at you if you like tower defense games. Amazon has the game exclusively for $1.50 and it’s worth every cent of that. But this is a sale price (normal price is $3) so now is the time to jump on it if you weren’t able to get it for free (and yes, that means we totally recommend you download it).

I loved this game but finished it too fast :p
My brother steals my phone to play it at night :D

http://twitter.com/mfg68 MFG

Runs like crap on my Charge.

Jdog25

Runs like a champ on my Nexus S and the tablet HD version is very good on my Asus Transformer. Looks like someone was overcharged seeing as both our phones run on the same processor. You don’t get what you paid for if your phone has a skin on Android.

me

agree with over rated, but it isn’t designed for the tablet and with that it’s a fail

Joy

This game runs smoothly on the Motorola Xoom

Jdog25

I have the Tablet HD version :-P

No really I do.

hamlin69

I really wish they put it on the android store….I have an unlocked at&t phone and it wont let me dl anything outside of the android store….also I am from canada and can’t use amazon store.

TheBarron

Guess you should have thought of that before getting an AT&T phone :)

http://twitter.com/yiddles Joseph Elkouby

Park the snark. Apart from the AT&T issue (for which is there is a workaround), the Amazon App Store is not available to anyone outside of the US. As much as I love Android, that’s an unacceptable limitation that only adds fuels the “fragmentation” argument.

sn0pzer

I wanted to download this as well on the day Amazon offered this for free, but they asked for my credit card details and my shipping address in order to download. WTF, credit card details (it was offered for free) and my shipping address (it was a download)?! Apart from the fact that it is ridiculous to ask for such things for a free app, I don’t own a credit card and therefore couldn’t download the game…

Suntan

This just in, Amazon gives away apps for free to try and entice you to come to their website more often and hopefully buy stuff. This is also the reason they want your CC and address on file. So that it is easier for you to make an impulse purchase.

But that doesn’t mean you have to buy anything.

If you don’t like the terms, don’t take their free app that they are offering. Pretty simple. Whining about it seems pretty pointless though.

-Suntan

Scared

I try to buy from Amazon all the time but they don’t want to know you if you are not American.

Asda

Slow news day huh..

eclipsenyou

What is it with comments like this? Does EVERYTHING have to be news related? If you don’t like the title don’t read the effin article. And who the hell knows why you even bothered to comment!

UKJeeper

Have this on my Galaxy Tab and it works really well. Friggin addictive! Havent touched Angry Birds in weeks.

feztheforeigner

Already beat it like a week ago…wish it was longer!

napes22

That’s what she said.

http://profiles.google.com/jansen.jeff Jeff Jansen

Fun game, but I just lost my save game for the 2nd time. Beat it once, had to start over, got half way through, and just lost it again. I have a Droid Charge, and I read about similar problems on other phones…really annoying.

James

If you already have another version of PvZ on another platform, I would suggest not getting it for Android. It’s such a half-rate port it’s not worth the time unless PvZ is the only game you would ever play. If you don’t already have PvZ, then by all means get it. Just remember that the other versions are not as buggy and usually have more features.

SirSpammenot

Help! HELP! I have it on an ASUS Transformer tablet and can’t stop playing it! Auuuuugh. Not my precious sunflowers! Noooooooo.

Translation: Works great. No sound or video stutters. Odd occasional visible artifact of lower right and bottom edge of transparent images, but I think that is a Honeycomb PNG issue that will be resolved. Best $0 I ever spent.

http://twitter.com/Emosnd Esmond Yeo

im playing awesome games that deserved to be played on my gba emulator.

for now, mobile phone games are mostly just timewasters cant come close to console games.

http://www.facebook.com/serio Austin Serio

DUH

This really shouldn’t come as much of a suprise to you.

JSReese9812

This games is the balls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Noemail

I like the game, but I had some issues with it. I upgrade my HTC EVO to 2.3 and everytime I quite the game Sense reset itself.

I hope they fix it soon.

Kikoman

any news when this will be available on the ANDROID MARKET? People abroad cannot buy apps on the Amazon Appstore.

B!

I was disappoint with the mobile port of PvZ. How could they leave out the zen garden for christ’s sake?